I imagine it is pretty universal to talk about the weather when you don’t have anything else to say. I’ve been writing haiku about nature which in blog language might be comparable. A sea change has been upon me. I can feel it but haven’t verbalized it to myself. So here goes.

After I was physically over-challenged by my trip to Costa Rica in March I made a decision to accept that my body is aging. My strong spirit is leading me in different directions. I’m cloudy about where I’ll end up. I’ve searched for trips to take in 2016 that are less vigorous physically. There is one to Yosemite, a place I have wanted to explore, where I could see the wonders from the window of a van and learn things seated in a room somewhere. That would be a travesty to my wanderlust. No going there. I found a writing class where we will write using our five senses “like Mary Oliver” – and do little walking. This is more like it. I signed on for next May. Air travel is an adventure but not of the fun kind. I’m willing to take that challenge to get myself to the writing class. The trick I’m learning is wanting to do something bad enough to figure out how to manage my physical limitations.

For the past twenty years I’ve been traveling to Mexico to spend a week at a timeshare my former husband and I bought. In a couple of weeks I’ll go there with my sons and their families – thirteen of us – to celebrate Thanksgiving. This will be a blow-out week. We will also celebrate my youngest son’s twentieth wedding anniversary, my middle son’s fiftieth birthday and my seventy-ninth. We have much to be thankful for. After going to Mexico with so many people I think going alone, as I have done the past few years, seems sad. I had asked my newly widowed sister to join us this year but she declined because she wanted to be with her son and his bride-to-be for Thanksgiving. She called me last week and said she wanted to go with me some time besides Thanksgiving. I jumped at a chance for her company so I booked us for early November next year.

My world is slipping back into focus. For years I have put trips on my calendar and airplane tickets in a drawer reserved for them. It’s like I was casting a line forward that colored the intervening days with expectation. Until this past week the only thing in my “travel drawer” was a confirmation for Thanksgiving from the timeshare resort and my plane tickets. I tried to adjust to a life lived in the present in my home town without much success. I’m not ready to “pack it in” just yet. My drawer now holds the necessities for my 2016 travels and my spirit is at peace. I’m not sure what condition my arthritic knee will be in. I do know that it will not hold me back .